It takes two: A love letter to Drake’s Duck-In

You’ll always remember your first time.

Some chicken sandwiches are just that good.

It’s a thought that crossed my mind recently as Drake’s Duck-In, the venerable fried chicken and burger joint in downtown Columbia, prepares to temporarily close its longtime location at 1544 Main St. for a number of months as the restaurant undergoes a complete remodel. The last day for Drake’s at 1544 Main, at least for a while, will be March 1.

After that closure, Drake’s will move to a temporary location at 1840 Hampton St., where it will remain until the renovations are completed at 1544 Main. The temporary spot on Hampton Street will likely be ready in a few weeks, Drake’s co-owner Daniel Boan said.

While a renovation to the Drake’s space on Main Street is sorely needed, if we are being honest, and the remodeled version of the restaurant likely will offer a fresh take on the experience, I have to admit I’ll be sad to see the old Duck-In space go. As it was, the restaurant — which has been around in one form or another at various locations since 1907 — has been at 1544 Main for 26 years and is one of the last vestiges of the old Main Street, before its current season of revitalization took hold.

To be certain, the reemergence of the Main Street District in the last decade, with a surge in new restaurants, bars, shops, hotels, apartments and more, has been a boon for Columbia. But through Drake’s, the charmingly shabby fast food joint that draws lunchtime customers from seemingly all walks of life, we could get a glimpse of downtown’s past, one styrofoam cup of pink lemonade at a time.

When I landed in Columbia in 2014 I went to work for Free Times, the at-the-time independently owned alt-weekly newspaper, covering Columbia City Hall and the mayor’s office. At the time, Free Times was located at 1534 Main St. The office had a ping-pong table and a suit of armor, there was a cardboard cutout of Daryl from “The Walking Dead” in the newsroom, and there was an art gallery at the front of the building. It was a funky, amazing place, and a far cry stylistically from the Index-Journal, the daily newspaper in the Upstate where I had worked for the previous decade.

And, perhaps most importantly, that old Free Times office was two doors down from Drake’s Duck-in.

Within my first few days working there, my then-colleagues Dan Cook, Eva Moore and Jordan Lawrence took me to lunch at Drake’s. When we walked in, they caught a bit of hesitance in my gaze as I took in the old restaurant’s worn, rough-hewn aesthetic. “Just trust us,” Dan implored me, with his impish grin, and suggested I get a chicken filet sandwich.

I did as instructed, and when we sat down in a booth with our lunch — one of those rickety orange and blue booths that were, uh, loosely bolted to the floor — I took a look at my sandwich and noticed something weird. There were not one, but two hulking slabs of chicken on the sandwich.

“They’ve made a mistake,” I told my coworkers. No, they told me, there was no mistake. The Drake’s filet sandwich, very intentionally, comes with two pieces of fried chicken.

I knew right then that this was a place after my own heart. Or at least my arteries.

In the years that followed, I’ve had countless lunches at Drake’s. And there have been takeout breakfast stops there with my wife and daughter during Soda City Market Saturdays. I did a story in there once when Beto O’Rourke came through town stumping for president, and he had chicken and waffles at Drake’s with then-Mayor Steve Benjamin.

I’ve had a lunch at Drake’s with Columbia conservative Dave Wilson and Democratic operative Phil Bailey, and politics were never broached between the three of us during the meal. Just talk of family and food and the Gamecocks’ foibles. You know, Columbia things. Even in a world gone politically divisive, there are some things that still bridge the gap. One of those is a two-piece basket from Drake’s.

And the old space at Drake’s reminded me of those we’ve lost. My former publisher at Free Times, Charlie Nutt, was a thoughtful, urbane, serious man who had at one point worked for the New York Times. He would often go over to Drake’s and get a chili dog, and the contrast in styles — this put-together businessman with a neatly trimmed beard wearing a shirt and tie while pounding a sloppy Drake’s dog — often amused me.

Alas, Charlie died in 2016, and I’ve missed him every day since. But I still think of him when I go in Drake’s Duck-in.

And so we say goodbye to Drake’s as it has been and look forward to the remodeled version of the restaurant that will take its place. I’m certain it’s going to look great, and the chicken sandwiches will be just as savory as ever. But a piece of me will miss the old, rough-and-tumble look, and the places it took us in our memories.